Russian President Vladimir Putin has suffered an emabarassing setback as his feared Satan 2 nuclear arsenal failed four out of five missile tests, according to arms experts and satellite imagery from the launch site.
High-resolution satellite images of the launch pad at Russia’s Plesetsk test site, where the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile exploded, shows extensive damage.
A crater approximately 60 meters wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, along with visible damage in the surrounding area that was not present in images taken earlier in the month.
Good point. Failing to copy your own missile would be even worse, though.
A good number of people did until early 2022. It looked a lot better on paper.
Did it? I remember a ton of propaganda about Putin and Russia going back to the Obama era, but then they’d show off stuff the USSR had developed to fight a war in Germany/Ukraine against late 1900s American equipment and tactics.
Whereas China was showing off their modern fighters, tank and ship production, and an entire branch of the military dedicated to missiles, and greater numbers than any other military, all designed to fight their next war; defending against/driving the US out of it’s back yard.
If you’re talking about the whole “human wave” thing in WWII, the ex-Nazis made that up for their memoirs. The old AskHistorians subreddit went into it once; basically the USSR fought the same way everyone else did.
I think the smart money was still on China post 2010 or so, but there was actual debate. They had a lot of old weapon stocks, and a still respectable population, if not as huge as China’s.
Ironically, there actual cases of human-wave like attacks in WWII, notably banzai charges by Japan and MacArthur’s Walking Fire.